The Story Of Popular Photography

A whole history of people pointing cameras at things and saying, “Hang on, one more,” lovingly documented.

The Story of Popular Photography (Trafalgar Square Publishing, 1989) by Colin Ford is the tale of how photography escaped the laboratory, shrugged off the tripod and marched straight into everyday life. This isn’t about austere galleries and tortured geniuses (well, not only that). It’s the saga of how we got from glass plates and poisonous chemicals to holiday snaps, baby photos and that one picture of Aunt Mabel nobody is allowed to throw away.

Ford walks you through the great democratisation of the lens:

• The early contraptions – when taking a family portrait required a small mortgage and nerves of steel.

• The Kodak moment – “You press the button, we do the rest,” or, “Congratulations, you have just invented badly composed but emotionally priceless pictures.”

• Box cameras and Brownies – the rise of the amateur, the hobbyist, and the person who always cuts someone’s head off in group shots.

• Roll film, miniatures and 35mm – cameras get smaller, faster and more annoying at parties.

• Post-war boom – snapshots, colour, holiday albums, and the dawning realisation that everyone now has visual evidence of your haircut choices.

It’s filled with images: ads, examples, early masterpieces, classic clunkers, family photos, street scenes – the whole messy, joyful archive of what happens when a magic scientific process becomes cheap enough for the rest of us. Ford adds dates, names, brands and context so you can nod wisely and murmur, “Ah yes, the rise of affordable cameras,” while secretly thinking of that disastrous school picture.

This copy is supplied by Crappy Old Books, ranked confidently as Condition: Good, which in our carefully improvised grading system means:

• The cover (and/or dust jacket, if present) shows honest shelfwear – light rubbing, tiny edge nicks, maybe a small crease or two: more “handled by humans” than “filed in a climate-controlled vault.”

• The spine is straight and uncracked, sturdier than many of the plastic cameras discussed within.

• The pages are clean, securely bound and gently toned – think “soft diffuse light through an old window” rather than “forgotten in the darkroom sink.”

• Minor scuffs, a touch of corner-softening, or a discreet previous owner’s name may appear; we classify these as authentic analogue patina, included at no extra charge.

ISBN: 0943955157, for cataloguers who enjoy giving a tidy number to a book about millions of untidy images.

Recommended if:

• You’ve ever wondered how photography went from “expensive miracle” to “everyone’s dad taking 37 pictures of the same sunset.”

• You like your photo history with plenty of actual pictures of actual people, not just solemn essays about “the gaze.”

• You want a single volume that explains why, long before smartphones, we were already incapable of going on holiday without a camera.

The Story of Popular Photography: box cameras, film rolls, snap-happy amateurs and the long, glorious slide from rarefied art to everyday habit – now in solid, gently timeworn Good condition, ready to sit on your shelf and quietly judge every blurry digital photo you’ve ever taken.

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